ElfMarked Child
by GeneticallyElvenGryffindor
Summary: A young woman, freed from the Matrix, finds something she left behind. What would she give for just one more moment with this person? What happens if she gets the chance to have one more meeting in the Matrix?
1. Daughters

AN: Alrighty….um…where to start on this. This story kind of wandered into my head and wouldn't go away. This story takes place before all of the other Matrix stories I've written. It also takes place before _The Matrix_, too. It's sort of back story I guess, in a way. I was going to post the whole thing as one long one-shot story but I turned into three smaller parts because it just seemed to make more sense that way. I'm open to any and every opinion so please leave me a review to let me know what you think. I'm open to anything you have to say…good, bad, or indifferent. OH! The title comes from an ancient Scottish idea that children born with any kind of defect were marked by the elves for mischief later on in life.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The_ _Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and I just finished graduate school for my Master's Degree. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"Girls become lovers who turn into mothers  
So mothers, be good to your daughters too…" (From "Daughters" by John Mayer)

It was late, extraordinarily, inhumanly late but Sprite didn't mind the hour. The later her shift was, the happier she appeared to be. Though "happy" was a relative term where Sprite was concerned. Maybe "content" was a better word to use since Sprite didn't exactly seem like the happy type. Either way, the ship she was currently stationed on, the _Thunder Wraith_, was as quiet as a tomb at night. It was perfect for just sitting at the Operator's console and watching the Matrix scroll down the screens that surrounded her.

Thanks to her attitude towards not only her position but to the Resistance in general, Sprite hadn't exactly endeared herself to the other members of the crew of the _Thunder Wraith_. Sprite was tracked as a ranked officer but she had little interest in promotions, letters of good conduct, or an eventual captain's position.

To anyone who'd met the crew of the _Thunder Wraith_, it almost seemed like twenty-two year old Sprite didn't even want to be on the hovercraft which was true in a way. Sprite openly told anyone who would listen that her foster family--- all former or current members of the Resistance ---had guilted her into military service since she was a member of their family. She had to continue on her family's fine tradition of serving the Resistance, whether she wanted to or not. It was just an obligation she'd unwittingly wandered into when they adopted her at fifteen.

In her four very long years with the Resistance, Sprite had managed to work on three ships thanks to the fact she was rather thickheaded about most everything and was felt by many captains to be hard to control as she didn't like following orders all the time. The _Thunder Wraith_ was just the latest--- the fourth to be exact ---in the parade of ships Sprite had worked on.

Maybe that was why Sprite was so fond of working the later shifts on whatever ship she happened to be working on at the moment. There was no one around to bother her, no one giving her annoying orders, or telling her to do things she didn't want to do in the first place. Sprite could sit in the Operator's chair, sometimes with her legs tucked underneath her, and stare at the Matrix as it rained down in front of her as if she was watching television.

Whenever she was on watch, at least one of the screens was trained on a small city just outside of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Not because she was keeping an eye on a potential or anything like that--- As far as Sprite knew, the _Thunder_ _Wraith_ wasn't watching anyone at the moment anyway. ---but because the one part of her past life in the Matrix she couldn't bring herself to let go of lived in that small town now.

Sprite had wanted to know the truth in the worst way and understood that by learning the truth, she'd never be able to go back to the life she'd lived in the Matrix. Despite all of that, there was still something, someone she felt bad leaving behind in the false reality of the Matrix. Someone she wished she could have taken with her when she'd taken the red pill but knew it was impossible.

As far as Sprite knew, it had never happened and probably never would happen especially when she considered the age of the other person that would have been involved. It was unheard of and probably fatal to at least one of the people involved. As it was, when two people were unplugged at once--- glibly called "twins" by members of the fleet ---there was the occasional fatality as one person was mistakenly tracked by both ships involved in the freeing and the other individual was left to drown in the dirty waters of the Real World.

Sprite knew she couldn't risk that happening. She was well aware of the fact that she'd risked more than she should have before her own freeing. Though she'd been only fifteen at the time--- just a stupid kid to her older sister ---even now she continued to think about what she'd done not only to herself but to the person she spent her not-so-free time watching.

"Sprite, my dear, you're going to get in trouble for watching her," reminded the _Thunder Wraith_'s Operator Eran as he entered the ship's Core and peered over Sprite's shoulder to stare at what she was watching. "You left her behind when you learned the truth. It's not like you can bring her here yet or ever, for that matter. She's too young to be freed and too sick for it to be a viable option later on in her life. Even if it was, there's no captain in his right mind that would take on such a risky case."

Sprite spun in her chair, mud colored eyes regarding her third Operator. Sprite, herself, was a dark haired--- it was an almost black shade of brown that she kept cropped to the base of her neck as a rule ---young woman with sharp but not angular features. If one looked at her long enough, one could see that she actually resembled a sprite or an elf of some kind but not in a rough way. It was more in an elvish, fairy sort of way instead. Eran, a Zion Born, often wondered if the stories he'd heard about people in the Matrix having children with elves were true looking at the usually belligerent Sprite's appearance.

"Eran," Sprite answered, sounding more serious than anyone her age probably should have sounded. "You have to stop listening to the captain or your family or whoever else you're talking to. There are just some parts of our past we Pod Borns can't let go of, no matter how hard we try. That little girl is the only part of my past in the Matrix I can't force myself to let me go. It's taken four ships for me just to find her again. I can't tell you how annoying that is!"

"You've been looking for her since you were eighteen?" Eran asked, slightly stunned at the idea of Sprite doing something for more than five minutes.

"It was the only reason why I decided to play nice with my foster family and a job in the fleet," Sprite admitted. "There was no way I could run this search while I was in Zion. I figured if I had access to the Matrix feed on a ship, I'd be able to find her. It's taken me a while but I've finally done it."

"What's she to you Sprite?" Eran asked, wondering if he was stepping too far over Sprite's very high and well protected boundaries but not really caring since she'd made him curious now. "Little sister, friend, cousin, neighbor."

"Daughter," Sprite answered, around a heavy sigh. "That girl is my daughter."

Eran glanced at the screen Sprite had been paying the most attention to, reading the bright green symbols that made up the Matrix code. As the Operator for the _Thunder Wraith_, the Matrix code was nothing more than an open book to him. The rain everyone else saw as just a series of tiny pictures formed images in his mind as easily as the words in a book created pictures in the imagination of the reader. What he saw on the screen surprised him, though.

In a Matrix schoolyard, according to the image he was seeing, a little dark haired girl of seven sat away from her peers, coughing into the elbow of the overly bright pink sweater she was wearing. Except for the eyes--- which were an odd shade of brown ---she looked almost to be the carbon copy of Sprite. They were both even built the same way. The little girl in the Matrix and Sprite were both on the short size, for their respective ages, and quite thin.

It was her age group; her peer group that surprised Eran more than her uncanny resemblance to Sprite. The little girl on the screen was seven years old, a first grader even in Zion terms. Sprite was twenty-two years old according to her medical records. It didn't take a genius to figure out the math. Sprite couldn't have been more than fifteen when she'd had the little girl and Sprite had been fifteen when she was freed. She couldn't have been with the little girl for more than a few months and a few months was not long enough to form any kind of permanent bond with her, he figured.

"Whatever you're thinking Eran," Sprite stated, knocking Eran out of his reverie. "You're wrong."

"So you weren't fifteen when you had that girl, Sprite," Eran countered.

"No," Sprite retorted, though there was a certain softness to her voice that wasn't usually there. "You're right about the fact I was fifteen when she was born. What you're wrong about is how I feel about her. Leaving her in there, at the mercy of the Matrix and, worse, my big sister, was the hardest thing I ever did. I can't tell you how badly I'd love to go in there and free her right now."

With a sigh, an uncharacteristic sound from Sprite who only sighed when she wanted to express her annoyance, she added, "But I know I can't just swoop in there and slip her the red pill. She's only seven years old and she might not be able to handle the change. If not that, then she's just too sick to handle the change but, Eran, you have to understand, I can't help but watch her. That little girl is part of me--- she came from me, no matter what the Matrix says ---and I can't just give up something that's a part of me."

"But you were only fifteen, Sprite, and you couldn't have had her with you for more than a few months, at the most because you were freed at fifteen. You couldn't have formed that kind of bond with her in that short span of time," Eran pointed out. "It's impossible!"

"She was mine for exactly three hours, Eran," Sprite corrected with a smirk. "Three of the finest hours the Matrix allowed me to have after five of the worst it made me experience."

Noticing Eran's confused expression--- he was an unmarried man with no children, after all, so Sprite figured he didn't know about these sorts of things ---she added, "She came pretty fast, at least that's what the emergency room doctors said...no time for drugs or anything. Once she came, they brought her to me because she just wouldn't stop crying. I had three wonderful hours with her before my sister came and ruined it for me. She had the social workers take her from me and this is the closest I've ever been to her since."

With a self depreciating laugh, Sprite stated, "I don't even know her name. I should have named her but I didn't think of doing that. I was too busy just…being…with her because I knew my time was running out. I'd be taking the red pill eventually so I figured I should enjoy every second I could with my daughter before then."

"What would you have called her?" Eran managed to squeak out, shocked that Sprite was sharing as much as she was with him.

To everyone on the _Thunder _Wraith and according to the reports attached to her personal file, Sprite was supposedly a very closed off person. Even if she was asked, she never spoke about herself and her past at any length. Though she was known for being unfriendly and hard headed, Sprite stood before him on the verge of tears and talking about a daughter she'd left behind at fifteen.

"Faith," Sprite answered around a hollow sounding laugh. "She was my Faith in humanity made real but I doubt that's her name now. Knowing my big sister, she has some awful bland name. Aimee was never known for her creativity."

"Why torment yourself like this, Sprite? Why watch her when you know she's not a good candidate for freeing even if she discovers the Matrix? You can see it in her code. There's something very wrong with her. Even though it's taking it's time to show up there'll be no stopping it once it does," Eran, carefully, broached.

"I like watching her. She's so smart, Eran, heads and tails above anyone in that class she's in but it looks like my sister and her husband don't recognize that fact. She's languishing in a class where she's bored out of her mind instead of in a class where she's challenged. Plus she's so small and so sick…I feel like that part's my fault," Sprite said. "I just wish I could go in there and talk to her for a little while. Maybe tell her...I don't know...something so she knows that my sister isn't the be all, end all of things and that she's allowed to be herself."

"You go in there and do something incredibly stupid like that, Sprite, and they'll throw you off the fleet so fast you won't know what hit you. I mean if you had a better track record they might leave you alone but you've been nothing but trouble since day one," Eran pointed out. "We're supposed to leave the batteries alone unless we're freeing one."

Watching a curiously mischievous look cross over Sprite's face, Eran blurted, "Sprite, you seriously can't be considering doing what I just told you not to do. There's just absolutely no way you can do that and get away with it! It's not only insanely dangerous for you but for your daughter if you were go and visit her."

"Eran, I stopped caring about being on the fleet my first day on a ship. I don't want to fight anymore. I came out here to learn the truth, not to fight machines and put my life in danger on a daily basis. I only took this job to find my daughter and because my foster family wanted me to. I'd be happy just living in Zion with everyone else," Sprite stated. "So if I get thrown out, I get thrown out. It won't bother me in the least."

Thinking quickly, she added, "If you help me, Eran, I'll make sure you don't get into even a hint of trouble. I'll tell everyone that I completely forced you into doing it."

"Do you really think anyone's going to buy that story, Sprite? Especially coming from a trouble maker like you," Eran quipped, putting his hands on his hips.

Shaking her head and getting frustrated with Eran, Sprite answered, "I highly doubt it anyone would believe me but I promise I'll find a way to take all the blame myself. I won't get you in any trouble or, at least, try my best not to get you into trouble. I promise I'll think of way so this all falls on me...even if it was your idea to begin with."

"We both need a few days to think about this, Sprite. You're probably just tired or feeling over emotional or something like that. Give it a few days and maybe you'll see I'm right and it's better to just leave well enough alone," Eran stated, trying desperately to convince Sprite to do the right thing and just leave the girl alone.

Sprite frowned, disliking the idea of thinking anything over. She wouldn't be able to sleep tonight or for the next week, her thoughts entirely consumed by prospect of meeting her daughter once again. Sprite was well aware of the fact that she'd given up her entire life in the Matrix by taking the red pill.

If given the choice to do it all again, she wouldn't have changed a thing. She wouldn't have taken the blue pill if she could go back in time and pick again. Sprite had wanted nothing more than to be free. The fifteen year old wanted to be out of the false reality that was the Matrix and away from the oppressive older sister that had raised her and leveled insane rules about how the young Sprite should live her life.

It was just that she couldn't give up on the daughter she'd left behind. Leaving the little girl had been the hardest decision she'd ever made, harder than even taking the red pill, even though Sprite hadn't been home with her daughter on the day they came to get her for her freeing.

Sprite, according to the Matrix police reports she'd been shown, had escaped from a drug rehabilitation facility nearly six weeks after the birth of her daughter. Her sister had declared her an unfit parent due to her young age and her dependence on some sort of pill shaped drug. Sprite had tried to pass the purple pill off as some kind a vitamin she needed to take but her sister hadn't believed her. Aimee never believed her.

What the purple pill was, Sprite could never exactly say. She remembered finding out that she was pregnant and that a man named Alphonse--- who was the baby's father and might have been a member of the Resistance, though, even now, Sprite didn't know that for certain. ---had given her a large bag of them. He said they would protect her and her baby from the Agents until Sprite could be freed.

The pills, they were only still in the testing phase, he'd told her, so no one was sure if they would actually work or not. Sprite, being young and a more than a little foolish, hadn't cared what the pills did. She wanted to be able to have her child and still be freed, though there were other options set before her by Alphonse. She gladly took the pills over any and every other suggestion even if there was the possibility of side effects on both her and her child.

Besides, she trusted Al and figured he'd never do anything to endanger the two of them since Sprite assumed that he loved her. It was just that her sister had jumped to conclusions---- Sprite knew she couldn't tell her sister what the pills were really for ---and taken her daughter from her. Not that Aimee wouldn't have wound up caring for Sprite's daughter in the end since Sprite had been freed but little more time with her daughter, that would have been nice.

Instead, it was six weeks of her "dealing" with an addiction she didn't have instead of spending what time she had with her daughter. Her being freed from the Matrix, to Sprite anyway, had been a welcomed gift on one hand but torture on the other. She got away from Aimee and out of the Matrix but at the cost of her newly born daughter.

"Fine...fine," she sighed, giving in for now. "But next time I have late watch, I'm going in whether or not you help me."

"You can't jack yourself in. First rule of ship life, Sprite," Eran countered, wearing a knowing smile.

Groaning, he added, "I'll help you if you decide this is what you really want to do but you better find a way to take all the heat for it. I'm not taking a hit for you because, unlike you, I like my job."

"Girl Scout's honor," Sprite laughed, holding up three fingers on her right hand. "You won't go down for helping me. I'll make sure it's just me that goes down. I'll say it was my idea and I forced you into taking part by using blackmail or something. I don't know yet."

With a quirky smile that made her look like her namesake, she added, "But I'll be polite and wait, just for you Eran. Besides, it gives me more time to figure out just what I'm going to say to get you out of trouble and get me into more trouble than I thought possible.


	2. Angel

AN: Hiya everyone! Hope everyone's having a good Friday. I'm going nuts trying to balance the million and one things I have to do for Girl Scouts with the insanity that is the end of the year at the dance studio I go to. If I have one more rehearsal that lasts until after 10PM, I may cry. Anywho, I apologize for the really long chapter. I hope it doesn't scare anyone! By the way, this chapter sort of, kind of introduces a very young version of a character from another one of my stories. You don't need to have read those stories to understand this chapter, though. Thanks to everyone who's put this story on alert or made it a favorite! To everyone who's left me a review, you rock like a box of socks! Please keep them coming! I'm open to any and all opinions…good, bad, or indifferent!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The_ _Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and I just finished graduate school for my Master's Degree. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"Don't hide your eyes from mine  
Angels do fall down sometimes  
They do get blind  
It happens all the time

Oh let your eyes look into mine  
You know I loved you all the time  
I loved you all the time  
Oh how I missed you when you weren't mine

So many tears I cried  
Just like a little child  
But now those days are gone  
I'm by your side  
I'll love you even after I die

You're an Angel…" (From "Angel" by Sinead O'Connor)

Nearly two weeks later, Sprite found herself staring at the same screen during the same inhuman hour of the night, watching and waiting. Her seven year old daughter was sitting in a reading class, staring out a window. One of her hands held up her head while the other made invisible circles on the wooden top of her desk.

She'd finished her assignment before the rest of her class and hadn't been given anything else to do to keep her busy. The flimsy little book Aimee had given her--- Sprite assumed it was Aimee anyway but it could have easily been the girl's teacher ---hadn't lasted her very long and was tucked in the girl's desk. That was how she'd come to stare out the window.

Sprite often wondered what the little girl thought about when she got all quiet and seemed to be lost in her seven year old thoughts. That was just another mystery Sprite wanted very badly to unravel. The Matrix only showed that the little girl was thinking, not what she was thinking about.

She just hoped that whatever the little girl was thinking about, it wasn't atypical and dull. Her daughter's thoughts, Sprite silently wished, were ones Aimee wouldn't have approved of in a million years. Sprite could only hope that their three hours together had somehow, in some tiny way changed the way her daughter thought.

The little girl might have been in Aimee's care but she wasn't Aimee's daughter. She was still, in Sprite's mind anyway, after all this time her little girl in not just looks. Though the looks thing was rather uncanny.

"Please tell me you've rethought this out and have come to the intelligent decision not to go through with it, Sprite," Eran groaned as he entered the _Thunder Wraith_'s Core to find Sprite eagerly waiting for him.

Swiveling around to face Eran, Sprite shook her head and answered, "Nope. I still want to do this, Eran. It's actually quite convenient, you showing up here now. The kids are just getting out of school and I know for a fact that my daughter has to walk home alone because my sister and her husband work during the day."

"You're going to get yourself killed," Eran snapped, out of a combination of frustration and annoyance. "Or you're going to get that girl killed. How are you going to feel if that happens?"

"I'm not," Sprite countered with a smile on her face. "Everything is going to be fine."

"And what about if she turns into an Agent? What then, Sprite?" Eran pressed.

"You know as well as I do that young children rarely turn into Agents. Their code's...not mature enough...to handle the change or so I remember learning," Sprite countered with an almost evil looking grin.

Wearing the same grin, she added, "That little girl isn't old enough so we won't have to worry about the whole Agent thing. Get it through your head, Eran, no amount of talking is going to get me to change my mind. We're going to do this and I'll take all the blame when it comes down to it. Like I told you, I never wanted to be out here in the first place. I want to go back to Zion so I don't have to fight anymore."

Eran groaned but walked over to the hanging chair Sprite had sprinted over to while she'd been "explaining" the situation to him. He knew there was no way of talking Sprite out of doing what she wanted to do but he had to try. He'd thought a few days to think about it would have done the trick and made Sprite change her mind.

Apparently not, though, since he stood poised behind her, prepared to jack her into the Matrix. Then again, there had to be a good reason why Sprite had been thrown off three other ships. Eran was starting to guess it had something to do with her attitude about things and the fact she just sort of did what she wanted no matter what anyone said to her.

"If I even smell an Agent near your location, I'm pulling you out. I don't care where you are or who you're with," he stated as he went back to the Operator's console. "Make sure to keep your phone handy."

"Just jack me in and shut your trap. Once we're done with this, you'll never have to put up with me again," Sprite stated as she closed her eyes and allowed the world around her to fade to dark. "And make sure to set me up with clothes that won't scare the girl!"

When she opened her mud colored eyes, Sprite found herself standing behind an old, stinking bathroom in what appeared to be the local park. She'd asked Eran to make her look friendlier as not scare the little girl but, apparently, he decided not to listen to her.

Eran had programmed her the same clothing she always wore whenever she went into the Matrix, much to her displeasure. Sprite stood in the middle of the park---the smell behind the bathroom, fake or not, was too much for her to deal with ---dressed in black leather pants that looked almost painted on and a leather jacket that fit snugly around her torso. Her hair, which was so dark brown that is almost looked black in the right light, was coiled around itself in a bun at the back of her head and black mirrored shades covered her eyes.

Reaching into one of her pockets--- It was a wonder she was able to keep a phone and weaponry on her considering how formfitting her clothing actually was. --- Sprite pulled out a tiny silver cell phone and dialed the _Thunder Wraith_. She tapped her foot impatiently, upset that Eran was wasting her valuable time with something as trivial as her clothing. She'd asked not to be put in her Matrix wear and he'd done it anyway…probably on purpose to spite her and make her stand out that much more. Either that or to get the Agents to pay attention to her. It had to be something wicked like that since he wasn't fond of her idea.

Sprite knew she had only so long with her daughter before one of them had to go. Before they'd be parted permanently because her actions would probably get thrown off her ship and prevent her from getting a job on another even if she wanted one. No one would be watching over her little girl anymore. There'd be no silent ghost watching her every move when they could. This was just as much a greeting as it was a parting for the both of them.

"_Thunder Wraith_," Eran said, even though he had a general idea on who was calling him.

Still there was protocol to be followed and it stated that the ship identify itself when being called. He knew Sprite would probably be seething on the other end of the phone but there was little he could do. Bad enough he'd broken about eighty rules just to allow her to go into the Matrix. He figured he should start making up for that fact before his head was on the chopping block next to hers.

"I told you something unintimidating, Eran," Sprite blurted, throwing up her free arm. "That didn't mean putting me in what I usually wear in the Matrix. Leather isn't exactly unintimidating, don't you think?"

"Yeah well, there's nothing I can do about it now. I didn't have time to program something else so you're just going to have to work with what you've got. Take off the shades or take your hair down or do both but, remember, time's a-wasting, Sprite," Eran said, around a laugh. "You don't have all day to decide what you're going to do."

Deciding her silence was better than saying anything at all, Sprite snapped her phone shut--- Eran would get a piece of her mind later. There'd be time enough for that before she was hauled off for whatever she'd done wrong. ---and headed in the direction of her daughter's school. It was a location she'd memorized easily, considering it was really the only grade school in town that her sister would send her niece to.

Her daughter attended the local public grade school. It was a big, grey stone building, easy to pick out from the small homes that surrounded it and often broken into but not by delinquent students. In a pinch, it was, apparently, often used as a quick and dirty hardline. Not that Sprite had ever used it--- As she'd been avoiding going into the town she was currently jogging through --but she'd heard of people who had. Municipal buildings seemed to be all the rage when trying to get out of the Matrix as fast as humanly possible. Sprite figured it had to do with the sheer number of phones that such buildings usually had.

As she ran towards the building, her hands worked through her hair, tugging it out of its bun and leaving it loose around her shoulders. Her sunglasses were stowed away in a small pocket in her jacket in the hopes of make herself seem less imposing. There was little she could do about the leather but Sprite figured it was going to be an uphill battle, trying to talk to her daughter in the first place. The way she was dressed, well, that just made it a bit harder.

It never hurt to try and, besides, that was her whole reason behind coming into the Matrix. She wanted to just try and talk to her daughter. Even dressed as she was, Sprite was determined to talk to her.

The leather clad woman found it almost too easy to pick her daughter out of the crowd of excited, chatting seven year olds that boiled out of the school building to head home to do homework or whatever it was seven year olds did. Sprite didn't actually remember since her being seven seemed like a whole other lifetime ago and in some ways it was. That was neither here nor there at the moment though as she scanned the crowd for a specific seven year old.

Much to her surprise, her seven year old daughter was easy to pick out of the crowd. She was the one scurrying alone down the length of the block with her hands wrapped around the straps of her backpack. A backpack that was neon green in color and, that sharply contrasted the pale peach sweater she was wearing. Sprite was curious to learn if her daughter had picked the backpack out herself. It didn't really seem like a color her sister would have approved of. After all, little girls were supposed to wear dresses and pink and things like that if she remembered correctly.

Neon green was a color Sprite, if she'd stayed around to raise the little girl, would have let her daughter wear. It was a cool enough color for both genders. Now it was just sort of an ironic color, all things considered.

Like a wraith, Sprite slipped into the shadows of the buildings that lined the streets near the school, tailing her daughter and waiting impatiently for an opportunity to open lines of communication with her. For now, she contented herself with watching as the girl's classmates passed her by on the street. Most seemed, much to Sprite's non-surprise, to ignore the long figure as they were busy talking to their parents or siblings.

"Going home alone again, Diane?" a young boy asked, as he and his mother passed by Sprite's daughter. "Where's your mom? Did she forget to come get you or something?"

The boy chuckled and, as if remembering added, "That's right! Your mom can't come get you because you don't have one!"

"Christopher!" the boy's mother admonished. "Leave her alone! It's not her fault things turned out the way they did."

In a lower voice, though Sprite heard it, the woman added, "If Thora had done as Aimee said, there wouldn't be any problem and there'd be one less child in that already crowded classroom of yours."

Sprite clenched her fists, neatly trimmed nails cutting half-moons into her palms as she fought the urge to throttle the woman where she stood. That would probably scare her daughter--- Diane was an awful name. Leave it to her sister to come up with a name like that. Then again her own name from the Matrix, Thora, hadn't been all that great a name either. ---and alert Agents to her presence in the Matrix.

Sprite was one of the few in the Resistance who always seemed to slip just under the combined eyes of the Agents that watched the Matrix. Some in the Resistance had joked that it was her gift but she wasn't sure since they were the same people who joked that, if that was her gift, it was ironic because she was under the eyes of the Zion Council almost daily. Sprite figured that, if she wasn't going to cause trouble, no trouble would come to her. The Agents would ignore her--- to a certain extent ---if she was just in the Matrix and wandering around, not freeing minds or anything else.

Her daughter, Diane, appeared to hear what Christopher's mother had implied about her. She started to pick up her pace, trying her best to further herself from the boy and his mother. Not that Sprite blamed her for doing so. From all her watching, she'd learned that Diane had little love for confrontation. She seemed to prefer to keep to herself and rather than deal with fighting with others.

"She's still weird," the boy protested, speaking loud enough for Diane to hear. "She doesn't have a mom or a dad. You said that ever kid needed a mom and a dad otherwise they'd be strange. That means your strange, Diane, because you only have an aunt and uncle."

"I'm not strange," Diane protested, barely loud enough for Sprite's acute hearing to pick up. "Sometimes people don't have moms and dads. Sometimes bad things happen to people and they have to go away."

"What kinds of bad things?" Sprite asked, as Diane, turned a corner and began walking away from Christopher and his mother. "What kind of bad things happened to your mom and dad?"

To saw that Diane was afraid was an understatement. Alone on a side street, approached by a woman dressed all in black, the little girl looked absolutely horrified. Her face paled to an almost unhealthy looking shade of white and her eyes--- the only thing about her that did resemble her mother ---opened almost comically wide. She gaped at Sprite who could only stare silently as her daughter reacted to her appearance.

The little girl took a few steps backwards, seemingly preparing to run away from Sprite but she stumbled over her own feet. Her backpack countered her weight--- Sprite wished she knew what her sister had been feeding the girl. Diane was very thing. ---and sent her tumbling backwards. It seemed to be packed full of books and far too heavy for her to carry.

"I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," Diane stated as she pushed herself to her feet and frowned when she saw that she'd skinned her palms pretty badly. "My Aunt Aimee said all strangers are going to hurt me or make me do bad things like they made my mom."

"Your Aunt Aimee is right about that. You shouldn't talk to strangers but I promise I'm not going to hurt you," Sprite replied, carefully choosing her words so she didn't slip up and say too much. "I just want to talk to you for a little while."

"About what?" Diane wanted to know, rubbing her palms together in an effort to get them clean so her aunt wouldn't get angry with her for being a mess again.

She insisted that little girls weren't supposed to be messy nor were they supposed to do things little boys did. That was the difference between little girls and little boys, after all.

"Well, how about you tell me what your aunt told you about what happened to your mom and dad?" Sprite offered, trying to keep her voice as neutral as possible. "I'll make sure no more of your classmates bother you on your way home."

"You know where I live?" Diane asked, the tone in her voice going to somewhere near frightened.

Sprite nearly smacked herself in the head. She couldn't really tell her daughter how she knew where she lived but she had to answer the question now. There was no way she could ignore it without scaring Diane further.

"I use to live here when I was younger," Sprite lied. "And I know the area pretty well. Besides I think you dropped this when you fell. Happens to have your address on it I see."

Sprite handed Diane back a small wallet--- pink of all the colors. Sprite was starting to tire of the pink ---with a flimsy paper card hanging out. It was some kind of medical card about a heart condition the girl--- full name Diane Marie Ford ---had. It included an emergency number as well as her street address which was all that mattered to Sprite at the moment.

"Oh thanks!" Diane blurted around a sigh of relief. "My Aunt Aimee would have been very angry with me if I would have lost it. She gets mad at me anyway because I get sick a lot. Her and Uncle Marco don't like when I get sick because it's not convenient for them since they have to work."

More questioned lined up in Sprite's mind as she started to walk down the block; Diane struggling to catch up with the older woman's longer strides. Slowing her steps a fraction, the little girl caught up and looked up at Sprite with wide, curious eyes that still held a shadow of her former fear she'd felt. Diane's eyes were a brandy brown color and not muddy like Sprite's. They were eyes that were definitely from her father.

Diane seemed to almost be studying Sprite with an intensity that made the unwilling member of the Resistance nervous. No seven year old should have that sort of power, Sprite decided.

"So what did your aunt say happened to your mom and dad?" Sprite asked again, curious about what her sister had said to her daughter.

The little girl bit her lower lip and, softly, answered, "Aunt Aimee said my mom didn't know who my dad was. She said my mom was...well...a very bad word I'm not supposed to say because she didn't know."

Shrugging her shoulders, backpack heaving with the action, and kicking at the ground with her once white sneaker, she added, "She said my mom ran away when I was a baby. She was sick, my mom, and she ran away because she didn't want to be a mom. My Aunt Aimee said she was stupid and irresponsible and I was an accident because my mom was just a stupid kid."

Sprite forced back every motherly desire she had--- Honestly, she didn't know she had any to begin with considering her time as a mother had been so short. ---to throw her arms around Diane and tell her that everything her aunt had told her was a lie. True, she'd run away and Diane had been an accident of sorts but she would have never told Diane that.

Besides, the rest of what Diane's aunt had said was a lie anyway. Sprite had wanted to keep Diane, contrary to what Aimee said, but she couldn't. She knew too much and that put the both of them in danger. Sprite knew she couldn't say that, couldn't tell Diane the truth because that would have caused all sorts of problems for the both of them but more for Diane since she was unable to leave the Matrix like her mother.

"My aunt doesn't like sick people and she said my mom had a sickness that she was trying to help her fix but my mom didn't want help. She didn't want to get better and that made Aunt Aimee angry," Diane pointed out. "I guess that's why she doesn't like me much. I get sick a lot."

"Your heart..." started Sprite, remembering the card that had nearly fallen out of Diane's tiny, pink wallet.

"I had a hole in my heart when I was a baby but I surgery to fix it," Diane answered with a shrug. "But the doctors said that I have something very wrong with my muscles or something. I'm not supposed to grow much or get very strong and they said I'm going to get sick a lot more than normal kids would."

"This makes your aunt upset?" Sprite wanted to know, finding it strange to be talking to her daughter but not able to say that she was her mother.

She found that the more she talked as if Diane's aunt--- Sprite sister Aimee ---wasn't really her sister, the more Sprite wanted to admit to being Diane's mother. It would have just made things that much easier but, still, it was an impossibility. She didn't want to endanger Diane just because she couldn't control her tongue.

"She gets mad because she says I'm a bother. I try not to get sick but it's hard because people at school get sick," Diane answered, with a small frown. "Then I get sick from them but it's worse when I get sick and I miss a lot of days of school and someone has to get my work and stay home with me. Aunt Aimee and Uncle Marco don't like that."

Deciding to change the topic--- all the talk about her sister was just making Sprite angry now ---she asked, "How do you do in school, Diane? I mean, how are your grades? Are they alright even though you miss a lot of days?"

The little girl's face turned a startling shade of scarlet as she answered, "I get all A's even though I miss school when I get really sick. My teacher, Mrs. Connors, told my Aunt Aimee that I was one of the smartest kids in the class and that I should be in second or third grade so I wouldn't be bored anymore."

A small smile broke out on Sprite's face--- Just a turning up of the corners of her mouth really and not an actual smile. It was becoming rumor that Sprite didn't know how to smile unless she was in or causing trouble ---at that statement. Her daughter might have been ill for reasons unknown but she was smart. Smart was a good thing. Skipping two grades smart was an even better thing. Smarts like that were what got you out of the Matrix once you figured out the right questions to ask.

If Diane used her smarts and managed to get around whatever was ailing her, maybe, just maybe, she'd get out of the Matrix. Then she, Sprite, could tell Diane the truth about who she really was and what had happened between them so many years ago.

"How come you're not?" Sprite wanted to know. "Your aunt doesn't want to do what's best for you?"

"Aunt Aimee said that I don't have friends so I should stay where I am. I have to learn to be like everyone else and make friends with the other kids," Diane, sounding sad, answered.

She frowned and lowering her already tiny voice to a bare whisper, she added, "But the other kids don't like me all that much. Aunt Aimee says I'm making it up but they really don't. They say bad things about me and make fun of me."

"Like that boy today?" Sprite said. "Christopher, I think his name was."

Diane nodded her head and explained, "Exactly like him. Aunt Aimee makes me talk to this man on Wednesdays because she thinks I'm making it up and he thinks I'm making it up too because Aunt Aimee comes in with me. He says I'm paranoid and that I don't know how to act right around other kids."

"I'm sure you're not paranoid," Sprite said. "But it must be awfully lonely if you don't have any friends to talk to in school. I always thought school was more fun with friends."

"It's alright," Diane, pragmatically, pointed out. "I don't want to be friends with mean people."

"Then what do you do" Sprite broached. "If you don't play with the other kids in your class?"

"I like puzzles," Diane answered. "I like when the teacher gives out word puzzles for use to figure out but they're too easy and I finish them too fast. Sometimes when Uncle Marco isn't looking I take the newspaper from his chair by the TV and do the grown up word puzzles in there."

Sprite gave Diane an odd look but shrugged. She, herself, had never liked puzzles of any kind but to each their own, she decided. Plus puzzles seemed to make Diane happy which was probably a good thing. After all living with Aimee and her husband probably wasn't a happy setting. At least that was how Sprite remembered her time with just Aimee. Her sister wasn't exactly the friendliest nor was she the kindest of people. Probably not the best person to have around a sensitive, growing seven year-old.

"But I don't like math puzzles," Diane pointed out. "Numbers are really icky."

"Do you get bad grades in math?" Sprite broached, since she knew several math inclined people who'd been freed from the Matrix.

"No..." Diane, slowly, answered. "I do okay in math. It's not my favorite subject, though."

"Really? What's your favorite subject, then?" Sprite questioned deliberately taking the long way back to Diane's house in order to steal a few more moments with her daughter. "I liked history when I was your age. When I got older, it was art."

"I like science. It's fun! The other day, the teacher brought in butterflies for us to look at since we have caterpillars in the classroom now. The ones Mrs. Connors brought in were sad and I didn't like them at all," Diane said.

"Why?" the older female prompted.

With a very sad look on her small face, Diane answered, "They were dead. She had their wings pinned down in a box. I didn't like that at all. Butterflies are really pretty especially when they fly around. Do you like butterflies?"

With a look that forced Sprite to notice the fact Diane had inherited her elvish features but in a much softer, little girl way, Diane asked, "I'm sorry for being rude. I didn't ask you your name. What's your name? I'm Diane."

"My name's Terhi," Sprite answered, giving Diane one of her many aliases she used while she was in the Matrix and one she'd probably never use again after this meeting. "And I do, like butterflies very much. They're very pretty. Have you ever had a butterfly land on your finger, Diane?"

The little girl shook her head, nearly black hair--- just like her mother's ---waving back and forth in a pony tail, and stated, "We went on a trip to a zoo and they had a big place full of butterflies but none of them landed on my fingers or in my hair like the other kids. They said my cough scared them or I smelled of sick and butterflies don't like things that smell of sick."

"I had a butterfly once," Sprite mused as they headed down the block Diane called home. "The most beautiful butterfly anyone had ever seen."

"What happened to your butterfly, Terhi?" Diane, curiously, wanted to know.

"You can't keep something like a butterfly, Diane," Sprite answered, swallowing past the lump growing in her throat since she wasn't really talking about a butterfly. "They fly away and sometimes never come back. Sometimes you get lucky to see them again but not always."

"I'm sorry," Diane said, very politely. "That your butterfly went away."

"It's alright," the older female said, ruffling Diane's baby soft hair under her hand. "Like I said sometimes you get lucky and get to see them again. Even if it's only for a little while. That's all that matters, seeing it for a little while."

"That one's my Aunt Aimee's house," Diane said, pointing to a plain red brick house in the middle of the block. "Thank you for walking me home, Terhi."

"It's not a problem, Diane," Sprite countered. "I'm going to have to get going soon anyway. Can you do something for me, though? Can you try not to let your aunt and uncle get you down and don't listen to what they say about your mom? She probably thought differently from your Aunt Aimee and she didn't like that."

"I can try," the little girl answered as she reluctantly walked up the front steps. "I hope to see you again!"

"I hope to see you again too," Sprite called in reply as she walked in the opposite direction.

She watched Diane--- Aimee really did curse her daughter with a terribly bland name. ---go into the house from the corner before setting off. Part of her was intensely happy that her daughter was doing well, though she seemed to be sick often. She was smart and did well in school. Having no friends worried Sprite a little but then her daughter was bored with the children around her. She'd probably do well with older kids because they were more like her.

Still there was a bittersweet edge to her happiness. Sprite knew, as she put her cell phone to her ear, that this was it. This was the last time she'd get to see her daughter in this world.

Maybe, someday, in the Real World but that wasn't a sure thing. It never was. Nothing ever was.


	3. Flood

AN: Hiya everyone! Alright…as promised, three parts to the story and here's the third part. It would have been up sooner but my dance studio had their dress rehearsal so I had to get ready for that debacle. Anywho, this story's done and I'll wander back to the main story of Pixie and her misadventures soon. Who knows…maybe Pixie and Sprite will cross paths sooner or later! I hope you enjoyed this bit of backstory, though. To anyone who's read my little misadventure, thank you for taking the time out to read my little mess of a story! To anyone who's left me a review or put me on alert, you rock like a box of sock. Remember, I'm open to any and all reviews…good, bad, or indifferent! Just let me know how I'm doing!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The_ _Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and I just finished graduate school for my Master's Degree. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"Calm the storms that drench my eyes  
Dry the streams still flowing  
Cast down all the waves of sin  
And guilt that overthrow me

But if I can't swim after forty days  
and my mind is crushed by the thrashing waves  
Lift me up so high that I cannot fall  
Lift me up  
Lift me up - when I'm falling  
Lift me up - I'm weak and I'm dying  
Lift me up - I need you to hold me  
Lift me up - Keep me from drowning again…" (From "Flood" by Jars of Clay)

Sprite had been correct in her assumption that her little "jaunt" through the Matrix to talk to Diane would get her into trouble. Her captain had pitched a very large fit when he found Eran removing the jack from the back of her head as she awoke from the Matrix. Once he settled down--- which wasn't saying much since he was still yelling several days after Sprite's "little stunt," as he called it ---Sprite had been committed to her quarters until they reached Zion.

Once they'd arrived in Zion, Sprite found herself banned from working in the fleet, as both she and Eran anticipated. She narrowly escaped time in the Stockade by promising never to apply for a job in the fleet again. Not that she had any aspirations for working for the fleet anymore. Sprite had done what she wanted and, though it killed her inside, she knew making contact with Diane, with her daughter; a second time would only put the little girl in danger. After all, it wasn't normal for a member of the Resistance to contact children in the Matrix, no matter how skilled or special said child was.

As for Eran, the individual who'd jacked Sprite into the Matrix, Sprite could never really say how she'd managed to talk him out of trouble. He wasn't allowed back on the _Thunder Wraith_ but he'd managed to find a position on a new ship. The fact he had to change ships was a slap on the wrist compared to Sprite's banning but Eran had taken offense to it.

Sprite had promised him that he would not find himself in trouble yet he had to switch ships and work someplace else. In her mind, she'd done as he asked since he was still able to work for the Resistance, just on a different ship. To Eran, though, Sprite had failed to uphold her end of their little bargain. He'd been forced to change ships which offended the Operator.

That was why, two years after the events that made her a permanent resident of Zion, Sprite found herself quite to see Eran standing on the other side of her red door. He seemed to be uncomfortable standing there under Sprite's calculating muddy brown gaze. The Operator--- Now working on the _Jade Shadow_ ---shifted his weight from foot to foot even as Sprite regarded him with a mixture of curiosity and confusion.

He'd interrupted her preparations for work the next day with his incessant banging on her door. Since her removal from the fleet, Sprite had taken up teaching at the Zion Academy. Though there had been positions opened for teachers in the high school area of Zion's only school, Sprite had opted for something a bit…harder…in terms of her new job. Instead of teaching teenagers--- who were purported to be well behaved young adults ---Sprite decided she wanted to teach in the grade school area of the Academy.

The only post open had been one for a first grade teacher. Sprite found that more than a little ironic--- Diane had been in first grade when the two of them had spoken. ---but didn't say anything. Instead, and much to her surprise, she found herself enjoying her new job. Maybe it was because of Diane and maybe it wasn't.

Sprite wasn't entirely sure why she liked her new job to tell the truth. She just did and that was that. It was much more satisfying than anything she'd ever done during her time in the Resistance, with the exception of connecting with Diane.

"Thought I'd never see you again," she quipped, leaning against the red doorframe of her home. "Especially after that little hissy fit you threw after they said you couldn't work on the _Thunder Wraith_ anymore."

With a sardonic smile, she added, "I figured you wouldn't want to be seen with the guilty party. You did say that the whole mess was my fault."

"Just passing by here on my way home. Can't fault me for going home while on leave. You use to do the same, if you remember Sprite," Eran stated.

"I could fault you for bothering me," Sprite countered. "But since you knocked on my door, I won't bother. What do you want, Eran? I obviously can't go back to the fleet so that's half a reason gone as to why you're bothering me right now."

"Look, we may have had our differences but you can't fault me for looking around the Matrix when I have late watches on the _Jade Shadow_," he added, stepping within close earshot of Sprite. "You know as well as I do that things happen on watch and you wind up looking in places you shouldn't."

"You found her again?" Sprite asked, thinking that Eran might have been talking about her daughter.

"There was a fire at that house you went to Sprite. A really bad one too from what I read. Some idiots fell asleep with candles burning and something caught fire. A neighbor called it in. The initial reports said that everyone in the house died in the fire. I'm so sorry Sprite," Eran stated, his tone gravely serious. "I know that little girl was important to you."

It took Sprite a moment to process what Eran had told her. Once the disbelief wore off, there was nothing but raw, untainted sadness. She felt tears prick at her eyes for the first time in a very long time and a sob threatened to bubble out of her throat. The little seven year old--- Diane would have been nine now, actually ---girl, her daughter, Diane, was dead. Killed in an accident because her sister or her sister's husband had forgotten to blow out a few candles. It was stupid and it just didn't seem fair.

"You going to be alright, Sprite?" Eran asked, breaking into her silence.

"I'll be fine. It's the past right? You said I should have left her behind back then," Sprite, tonelessly, retorted. "Maybe I should have listened to you."

"You left that life behind for the truth and sometimes the truth hurts," Eran stated. "Didn't they tell you that when you took the Red Pill? You had to leave everything from the Matrix behind in order to know what the truth was."

"Truer words have never been spoken," Sprite mumbled as she turned to go back inside and have a good, long cry for the daughter she'd only known for a handful of hours, the one thing she couldn't leave behind now left behind for good. "Truer words have never been spoken."

Meanwhile in the Matrix, a young Diane Marie Ford--- found relatively unharmed in her bedroom save for some smoke inhalation ---lay in her hospital bed. She'd narrowly survived the fire that had taken the lives of her aunt and uncle. The fire fighters had found her hiding under the covers of her second floor bedroom, curled up around a butterfly shaped pillow. The initial reports had been wrong…there'd been one young survivor of the house fire, one child that the reports forgot to mention.

Without any family, she'd become a ward of the state, living in a group home as just another name and number to the state she called home.


End file.
